The Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team will face Slovakia tomorrow in their second Group A game at the Istria Cup in Croatia with Ireland targeting their first win of the tournament.
Ireland had to settle for a 1-1 with Hungary in their opening game of the Cup in a game they dominated for long periods.
Up next it's Slovakia who ill be very familiar to the Irish who faced them in their recent World Cup qualifying campaign and beat them 2-0 in Bray in September 2013 and 1-0 in Slovakia last September.
However, those two wins were hard earned and the Slovakians showed on Wednesday when they drew 1-1 with tournament favourites Austria that they are a rapidly improving side.
"The two games in the group on Wednesday showed that everybody is capable of taking points off each other so we are not going to take the Slovakia game lightly and we will go into it hoping to get the three points.
"But we won’t be taking it for granted or thinking it is going to be an easy task. The group is wide open but the second game now becomes vital and we will be looking to get three points tomorrow," said midfielder Meabh De Burca.
The Galway WFC midfielder played as a defensive midfielder in Ireland’s 1-1 draw against Hungary on Monday and, like everybody else in the squad, was disappointed not to emerge with a win from a game Ireland dominated.
“We had our eyes set on three points to get off to a good start but the main thing in tournaments like this is that you don’t lose the first game.
"So, to come back from a goal against the run of play showed a bit of character and we definitely could have won the game at the end with the amount of chances we had. But, we’ll take the positives from it anyway."
Manager Sue Ronan will not name her team until Friday morning but she does intend to freshen it up so some of the players who didn’t feature on Wednesday against Hungary are likely to start.
Two players definitely out of the Slovakia game are Katie McCabe and Sarah Rowe who made their senior international debuts on Wednesday. McCabe suffered a bruised foot while Rowe, who is a third level student, was instructed by her college to return to Dublin to play in GAA match tonight.
Emma Beckett, who missed the Hungary game because of a groin injury, took a full part in training today and is available for selection.
